where his secret story used to be. He had not
found it worth while to fill the space. He had not found it worth
while to shut the door.

"Do you remember that Christmas," said Jay, "when there was a blizzard,
and a great sea, and the foam blinded the western windows of the House,
and the children went out to sing 'Love and joy come to you'? (Those
aren't real words any more now, are they? only pretty caricatures.) And
when the children came in with snow and foam plastered up their windward
sides, do you remember that one of them said, 'Is this what Lot's wife
felt like?'"

"I can just remember Love and Joy mixed up with the wind at the window,"
said Mr. Russell. "But always best of all I can remember the way you
looked on ..."

"Me?" said Jay. "I wasn't there."

"Oh yes you were, and that's what you forget. You were there always, and
when I was looking for the House I believe it was always you I was
expecting to find there."

"Me! Me, with this same old face?" gasped Jay. "Oh, excuse me, but you
lie. You never recognised me in my 'bus."

"I knew without knowing I knew. I remembered without remembering that I
remembered. We haven't made a psychical discovery, Jay, we have done
nothing to write a book about. Only you remember so well that you have
reminded me."

"I don't believe that can be true," said Jay. "I know I wasn't there."

"Why can't you see the truth of it?" asked Mr. Russell, sighing for
so many words wasted. "In that House by the Sea, who was your
Secret Friend?"

"My Friend," said Jay, "is young and very full of youth. He is like a
baby who knows life and yet finds it very amusing, and very new. He is
without the gift of rest, but then he does not need it, the world in
which he lives is not so tired and not so muddling as our world. In him
my only belief and my only colour and my last dregs of romance, and
certainly my youth survive. We never bother about reserve, and we never
mind being sentimental in my Secret World. We just live, and we are never
tortured by the futility of knowledge."

"Well," said Mr. Russell, "I had a Secret Friend in my House, and she was
wonderful because she was so young that she knew nothing. She never
asked questions, but she thought questions. She knew nothing, she was
waiting to grow up. She had little colour, only peace and promise. I knew
she would grow up, but I also knew she would never grow old. I knew she
would learn much, but I also knew she would never becom